Mirrored Page Numbering

I have a question that I am needing help with. I am currently using LibreOffice 6.1 to work on a book that will be published soon. One of the requirements from the publisher is that they have a specific way they want the pages numbered.

Page numbering should be where odd page numbers show on the right and even pages show on the left in the footer. If someone can help me with this or give me an example of how to setup Writer to do this, it would be greatly appreciated.

2 Answers

Page numbers are inserted in footers and footers are a property of page styles.

To get mirrored page layout, you must customise page styles (sorry, the built-in "mirrored" option will only mirror margins, becoming inner and outer instead of left and right).

Open the styles side-pane with F11 and click on the fourth toolbar icon from the left (a button labelled Page Styles when you hover over it).

Modify both Right Page and Left Page: right-click on name and Modify

Go to Footer tab to enable it (Footer on checkbox). You can keep the Same content boxes checked though it does not make sense here.

Set the adequate margins in the Page tab if needed

Push OK button when done

Left Page and Right Page styles are parametrised so that the styles alternate when text flow from one page to the next.

When this is done, put the cursor on your first right page and double-click on Right Page. This will format all odd pages with this style and even pages with Left Page.

You must now create your footers. You'll format them with paragraph styles Footer Left and Footer Right. I assume your footer contains only the page number. If you have additional elements, I'll let adapt the configuration.

in the styles side-pane (F11, remember?), click on the first toolbar icon from the left (Paragraph Styles)

Modify both Footer Left and Footer Right: right-click on name and Modify

In Alignment tab, set Alignment to Left for Footer Left and Right for Footer Right; eventually set font face and size in Font tab or any other properties in other tabs. Push OK button.

Set your cursor in the footer of a left page, double click on Footer Left. Insert>Fields>Page Number to get the page number in the footer.

Set the cursor in the footer of a right page, double click on Footer Right. Insert>Fields>Page Number to get the page number in the footer.

You're done.

Of course, your book has a cover and may be a few pages which should not be numbered. This can be managed with yet another page style. Take care to insert a page break at end of this "preamble" to cause a switch to Right Page. This is not difficult. I'll let it to you as an exercise. The preceding steps give you the gist of it.

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Comments

Hmm. But making page layout "mirrored", and unchecking "same content on left and right pages" on Footer tab seems to make it work, unlike the statement that "you must customise page styles (sorry, the built-in "mirrored" option will only mirror margins, becoming inner and outer instead of left and right)". Do I miss something?

@Mike Kaganski: the "mirrored" option is for page style margin definition and has no effect on footer paragraph styles, thus the need to update. Footer x will be used only for one of left of right page due to alternation by linked to and never for the other side. Then whether Same content is checked or not does not matter because the "other side" is never generated. This statement is not true if a single page style is used for even/odd, but then you have less versatility and no guarantee to start correctly with a right page (unless you do the correct trick, but OP admits he's a newbie). Yes, it could have been done with a single page style but I consider it is neater with 2, resulting in less confusion.